Serial entrepreneur, John Williams, owner of Impulse Off Road shares the journey to now, with all the twists and turns. John has had some interesting experiences and is sure to have many more. Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.
5:08 – our front yard corner was worn to dirt; that was our goal, was to wear through the grass every year on our motorcycle
13:02 – when I got done with the Land Cruiser, I got 33 1250’s and I thought I was king of the world
20:39 – I had my friend’s dad’s credit card and ordered a lift, I thought, this is the coolest thing ever, I tell people I work for Roberts Auto and I don’t have to pay full price.
27:19– we’ve just been compatible in that aspect; my strong points are not his and his are not mine.
34:03 – they gave me the opportunity to pitch a Raptor program to the higher-ups at Ford when they came out to the track; We created the Raptor Assault program together.
43:34 – You realize you don’t win and lose races in the first 100 miles, it comes down to the last 2-3 miles – it’s how you manage, mitigate risk, and make sure the car is staying together
50:53 – the whole time you’re thinking, why am I here? Why am I doing this? But when you’re done, you can’t wait to do it all over again
Special thanks to 4low Magazine and Maxxis Tires for support and sponsorship of this podcast.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:40.010] – Big Rich Klein
On this episode of Conversations with Big Rich, I’ll be speaking with John Williams. John has been working in the off-road industry for most of his adult life. From building startups to building rigs to building rock crawlers and building racers to racing to teaching, John is always moving forward. Hello, John Williams. It’s good to get you on here, finally. What has it been? About two years, at least? Yeah, since I first asked you to come and be a guest.
[00:02:13.910] – John Williams
Good morning. It’s so good to be here. Yeah, it always seems like there’s that next big mountain to climb or something big happening that would be so relevant to talk about. It’s just, Just wait, just wait, just wait. Here we are two years later. But a lot of really good things have happened over the last two years.
[00:02:29.280] – Big Rich Klein
Okay, well, let’s get started with the interview. First question, always the easiest one to answer, where were you born and raised?
[00:02:37.560] – John Williams
All right. I was born and raised in Logan, Utah. Born in 1977 and just grew up in the little old town of Logan.
[00:02:46.230] – Big Rich Klein
And John, you have a brother. Any other siblings?
[00:02:50.480] – John Williams
I have a brother, Nate, three years younger than me, and a sister, Amy, who’s three years younger than him. And so we’re all three years apart.
[00:03:00.510] – Big Rich Klein
So all three years apart. That’s a pretty good timing.
[00:03:04.000] – John Williams
Yeah, they knew what they were doing. All birthdays in February, March, and April.
[00:03:09.650] – Big Rich Klein
So Logan, back in those days, was probably pretty rural. Is that correct? A lot of open space?
[00:03:16.020] – John Williams
I sure wish I could go back to those days. Logan was just an amazing… It was just a big little city. And I always think back to when I was a kid and my radius of where I could play without telling my parents where I was was probably five or in a circle. I don’t even let my kids play outside without me sitting outside watching them these days. Just the greatest time to grow up. A little farming community where surrounding Logan. Logan was the big little city there. Great people, hardly any crime, no trouble, just a really good place to grow up and have a fantastic childhood.
00:03:55.250] – Big Rich Klein
Did your mom and dad work in the area? I would assume, and What did they do for a living?
[00:04:02.840] – John Williams
My dad was a real estate appraiser, and my mom was his secretary, did all the bookkeeping and billing and things like that. It was an at-home work, so he did everything out of the house. We got to spend a lot of time together in those years and got to go out and do work with him and help him take pictures of houses and measure houses and just started really learning what hard work really is. He never let us be lazy. He always wanted us to be anxiously engaged in a good cause. That was his big thing every day. If we were sitting down, if we started playing Nintendo, it was game over. It’s like, you need to go in the garage, you need to go do something other than sit in the house. So that’s where our love for mechanics and everything stemmed from was playing out in the garage because that was really all we could do.
[00:04:52.550] – Big Rich Klein
What things did you guys do to entertain yourselves when you were kids? Did you Did you go on? Motorcycles, bicycles, fishing? What did you guys do?
[00:05:08.320] – John Williams
Obviously, riding bikes was a big deal. We rode bikes and scooters all the time. My dad got us motorcycles. I was seven, he was four, and I think he learned how to ride a bike when he was three. We rode motorcycles with my dad all the time. Our front yard corner was worn to dirt. That was our goal, was to wear us through the grass every year on our motorcycle so everybody knew where we were riding and driving. We built little jumps, put little four-inch diameter log with some plywood on it and jumped the motorcycles in the front yard. And of course, no helmets. Nobody wore helmets back then. And just playing around, being kids, building forts, and hanging out with my dad. READ MORE
